Welcome to the November issue of Australian Book Review – our first Performing Arts issue and one of the highlights of our publishing year. Highlights are many and varied. They include Melbourne theatre critic Andrew Fuhrmann’s long article ‘A Theatre of His Own: The Problematic Plays of Patrick White’ – the fruit of his ABR Ian Potter Foundation Fellowship. It’s a huge time for fiction publishing in Australia, and Brian Matthews finds much to admire in Tim Winton’s new novel, Eyrie, while Rosemary Sorensen reviews Christos Tsiolkas’s Barracuda. Steven Carroll tackles a biography of the man who lived with and edited T.S. Eliot. We also name the winner of this year’s Jolley Prize.

With James Packer and Lachlan Murdoch grinning smugly on its cover, Killing Fairfax: Packer, Murdoch and the Ultimate Revenge projects a strong message that they are indeed the company’s smiling assassins. Pamela Williams mounts a case that these scions of Australia’s traditional media families ...